Malta has fallen four places in an index ranking countries by happiness returning to levels last seen in 2021.
Malta placed 37th out of 137 countries in the World Happiness Report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, in a reversal of progress made last year when the country climbed four places to 33rd place.
The study, as in previous years, was based on scores obtained over three years - spanning from 2020 to 2022.
The surveys asked respondents about their levels of happiness in the context of social support, physical and mental health, generosity, freedom of life choices, perceptions of corruption and GDP.
Malta scored 6.3000 in the measure for average life evaluation, down from 6.447 in 2022. Despite being back in the same place in the list as in 2021, this year’s happiness score was higher than the 6.157 seen that year.
Finland, Denmark and Iceland took the top three spots this year, continuing a trend seen in similar reports published in 2022 and 2021.
Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Afghanistan were the lowest-ranked countries for global happiness.
Breakdown of points
Malta gave 1.468 to social support, 0.547 to healthy life expectancy, 0.200 to generosity, 0.671 to the freedom to make life choices, 0.143 to perceptions of corruption, 1.841 to GDP per capita and 1.429 explained by dystopia.
The dystopia indicator is used as a comparative benchmark to an imaginary country where scores for everything are low and unpleasant. In terms of the variables, no country has performed poorer than dystopia, according to the report.
“Life evaluations have continued to be remarkably resilient, with global averages in the COVID-19 years 2020-2022 just as high as those in the pre-pandemic years 2017-2019," the report said.
“Generally, people are happier living in countries where the happiness gap is smaller. Happiness gaps globally have been fairly stable over time, although there are growing gaps in many African countries."
Happiness equality
Malta scored 39th on the list for happiness equality, a measure used to show the gap in happiness between the happiest and least happy halves of the population.
While the top countries in overall happiness scored highly on the list, the country in top place was Afghanistan, suggesting that the happier half of the population in the country still registered relatively low levels of overall happiness.
The report notes that last year benevolence grew sharply in Ukraine but fell in Russia.
While both countries registered increases in confidence in their national governments, Ukraine enjoyed a higher rise than Russia.
“Despite the magnitude of suffering and damage in Ukraine, life evaluations in September 2022 remained higher than in the aftermath of the 2014 annexation, supported now by a stronger sense of common purpose, benevolence, and trust in Ukrainian leadership”, the report said.